Seablindness. Seth Cropsey
excuse not to act—as they had when all of Ukraine fell eight years earlier.
The president raised an eyebrow and threw a glance in the direction of General Zrebiec. “Do you have everything you need?” asked President Algodón.
Admiral Krone hesitated, coughed slightly, and said, “Yes, militarily.”
“But, what?” asked Algodón.
“Sir, our ground and air forces can handle the Russians. As you’ve probably seen from the intelligence reports, the Russian high command knows it is outgunned on land. We’re at a large disadvantage at sea. The Russians will fail if they try forcing their way from sea. They don’t have enough close air support to conduct an opposed landing, and they have no experience with these operations. But they can harry NATO’s ground operations if the Russians invade Estonia. I am confident that our ballistic-missile defenses can handle anything Putin throws at us. But . . .” Here the admiral hesitated again.
“But what?” the president repeated.
“Aside from Poland, the Czechs, and the Romanians, I don’t think that the Europeans have their hearts in this. I mean I think that Putin is making a good bet. He expects the big NATO states to fold if he actually invades.”
The president nodded. “Yes,” he said. “We led them into Afghanistan and Iraq, and they lost their nerve. Hell, we lost ours. Look, I’ll invite them to Washington on Thursday and remind them what’s at stake for the alliance. I want you there to brief them on the military situation.”
“Sir,” answered the admiral.
“Anything else?” asked the president.
“Yes, sir. If the Russians invade Estonia, I need much more naval support.”
The president, a former Army Ranger, asked SACEUR to explain.
“Sir, a carrier’s air wing; ships and subs equipped with cruise missiles; even destroyers with their electromagnetic rail guns, which can reach a target a hundred miles away, could rip up Russia’s northern naval bases and cut the supply lines their ground forces would depend on in Estonia. I don’t have enough ground-based air now to execute those missions and”—the admiral emphasized—“check the naval forces Putin is collecting in the Baltic. Sir, I need the Navy.”
“Ok,” said the president. “I’ll talk with General Zrebiec here about getting some more ships up there.” The chairman made a note on his yellow pad.
“Sir.” The admiral’s helicopter’s engines were still warm when he climbed back aboard it on the White House South Lawn. Krone was airborne for Estonia two hours after landing at Andrews.
One hour into SACEUR’s eastbound flight, as the C-37A flew over Cape Cod, heading northeast toward the open Atlantic, a pair of Russian multipurpose Sukhoi T-50s lifted off from Pskov and met up with an Ilyushin Il-78 tanker over central Estonia. The summer solstice had occurred a week earlier. At 59+ degrees latitude the northern horizon stayed a blue-gold hue from sunset to dawn. All three planes flew through the quasi-night with their transponders off.
The crews of two C-17 USAF transport planes rising up from Amari on a return flight to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware were settling in for the nine-hour haul back home. Besides the C-17, the traffic controllers at Amari were also monitoring an inbound flight of American F-35s from Frankfurt. The controllers directed the in- and outbound flights safely past one another.
But air traffic control did not know that the Russian stealth tactical fighters were in the vicinity. Both the American and Russian planes were equipped with stealth technology. The F-35 and Sukhoi pilots finally saw one another at an approach speed of Mach 1.89 when they were less than a mile apart. All four pilots turned on their targeting radars and jinked to avoid collision. The evasive action saved one American and one Russian plane. The other two were less fortunate. Their wings brushed each other, severely damaging both aircraft and rendering them uncontrollable. The Russian pilot’s ejection seat failed. He died when his plane crashed. The American was luckier. He parachuted safely, walked away out of the potato field where he’d landed, and hitchhiked to the nearest village.
Russian national security advisor Dmitri Bogdanov awakened Putin at 0400, a half-hour after the sun rose in Moscow. He told the Russian president that a Russian fighter had been downed over Estonia; that the NATO planes had their targeting radars on when the Sukhoi went down; and that the Russian pilot was presumed to have been killed. The second Russian pilot had returned to his base unharmed and was still being debriefed. Bogdanov could not answer whether the Russian plane had been shot down. Putin didn’t care.
He dressed and strolled to the presidential briefing room in the Kremlin, thinking. The surviving Russian pilot had seen his wingman’s plane on fire after the collision and had told briefers that the American pilots had “painted” the Russian jets, that is, turned on their targeting radars. He described how the Russian and American planes had had visual contact prior to the incident. He did not know that his wingman’s plane had collided with the F-35. Putin called for his chief of staff, defense minister, and intelligence head.
Admiral Krone received word of the incident aboard his flight to Estonia. On arrival at Amari, he was driven to his command center, where the reports started to come in. So did the two American pilots who had survived the encounter. Krone ordered an uptick in NATO’s defense readiness condition and sent a draft press release to the Pentagon.
Two NATO F-35s piloted by United States Air Force officers encountered two Russian Sukhoi T-50 fighters over Estonian airspace at approximately 0315 local time this morning. The Russian fighters were overflying a NATO member’s airspace without Estonian approval with their transponders turned off. The NATO pilots were on a standard patrol mission. They and the Russian pilots became aware of each other visually at a distance of less than one mile. They took action to avoid collision. One NATO and one Russian plane avoided each other. The other Russian fighter’s wing collided with the F-35’s wing. Both planes were seriously damaged. The U.S. pilot ejected. He is safe. There is no evidence that the Russian pilot ejected. NATO investigators have located the site of the crash and are making every effort to find the missing pilot. There are no reports of ground fatalities or injuries related to the collision.
After Washington approved the draft, it was sent for information purposes to the NATO ambassadors of all the alliance members. The statement was issued to the media at noon local time in Tallinn.
Before NATO’s first public comment, Putin had gone on state-run television to accuse NATO of “provoking Russia.” He angrily denounced NATO for targeting the Russian planes with their radar, which he said was proof of “hostile intent.” “Ethnic Russians who live in the Baltic States,” said Putin, fixing his hooded eyes on the camera, “have been the subjects of repression and aggression by the governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Now, NATO has joined these criminal states.”
The accusation was Putin’s idea. His meeting with Defense Minister Vissarionovich and Intelligence Chief Ulyanov yielded another. Russia initiated bot attacks—Web robots that transformed selected Estonian computers into virtual zombies. The attacks allowed Moscow to control the little Baltic state’s interior ministry’s command and control center. From this center in Tallinn went orders to local police around the country to start rounding up leaders of the ethnic Russian business and civic communities. Once in police custody, they were to be interrogated about subversive activities.
Other bot attacks targeted the Estonian prime minister and his defense, foreign, interior, and finance ministers, as well as their deputies, who learned that their bank accounts, equity, and bond holdings had been either zeroed or reduced by 75 percent.
The alarming reports of personal financial ruin distracted the government’s chief ministers from the arrest of ethnic Russians in Tallinn, Tartu, Narva, and the country’s other population centers, large and small. The government learned of them when the Russian state media broadcast Vladimir Putin’s stormy declaration that “I will not stand by and allow ethnic Russians to be treated like dogs.” By the time of Putin’s broadcast, the Estonian government had already stopped the roundup. Its prime minister